Spiked Pillar, need feedback

inewland53

Hey guys,
This is my first thread here at polycount and I need some feedback.

This is just a random prop idea I had as I'm working my way into sub-D modeling. I know this prop needs a lot of work, especially with the maps.

My normal has got some issues with blown out colors that I need to fix, not sure what is causing them!? Also, my textures need a lot of work so i'm hoping you guys can give me feedback on those. Anything else you pick out, let me know as well. Your input is much appreciated.

Thanks.

Slave_zero

Hey there.

I like your model but you should brush up the textures a bit.

To the textures I have some sugestions:

There is a lot of noise going on in the color-map. Even If the pillar is supposed to be dirty and worn out you could lower the dirt a little. At the moment it's hard to tell which effects are done by normalmap and which is done with the color.

I'd try to reduce the noise in the colormap. The color should support and underline the normalmap and vice versa. At the moment your color is reducing the details one could see in the normalmap I guess.

So a nice start. keep on with the textures.

BTW: How many polys does it have?

ImSlightlyBored

yeah, I always try to tone down my grunge layers. It might not look as good in photoshop but they look, by and large, better in game. More readable.

Rust parts could do with a bit of variety. Rust normally gets darker on edges, sort of like scratched edges but inverted, and you could maybe throw in some metal that hasnt rusted for variation (you normally get small patches, but I dont think it'd suit this so much)

Also, a bit more AO baked in to the concrete would be nice, as it is all uniquely wrapped.

You'll also get told that high to low baking will serve you better than crazybump, so I'm getting in there first! but at the moment its hard to see what your normals are doing.

hope some of that helps

[HP]

Indeed, It's preferred to have a much "pale" color map, and let the normal and spec do the rest.

As it is now, the color map has too much noise, plus, you should avoid having pure black on the color map, It always looks weird on the final piece, imho.

SHEPEIRO

yes dont have black in your diffuse, almost never have black in your diffuse, as when this lights you will get large areas of flat grey, think about whatthe material is when lit and go for a darker more saturated version of that instead

BradMyers82

Yeah, what sepeiro said. You don't usually want any pure black (or white for that matter) in your diffuse because it gets multiplied by the other maps. Ian Joyner mentions that briefly in his Gnomon texturing tutorial, its character stuff, but worth checking out imo.

cholden

Crazybump isn't a make-art button. For your early ventures into normal mapping, I suggest modeling a high poly version of this, and generating your normal with that. You can use photoshop and crazybump to handle a lot of your normal map generation needs, but it is not advised until you understand which part should or should not be high poly modeled based on schedule. On the bright side, you've got it in Unreal. So you've got the back end of your pipeline under control. Now go back and get the start right.

inewland53

Thanks for the feedback guys. I forgot to mention that I took my actually stone pillar into zbrush and did some sculpting.

After I textured, I took my diffuse into crazybump to pull out some extra details, then did an overlay in photoshop.

Here is the updated normal. It has colors blown out, why is that? What is causing this?

Also, its about 1400 tris...too much?

Thanks.

cholden

When you overlay a normal on a normal, you have to deactivate the blue channel. Double click the layer in photoshop, and uncheck the blue box under Advanced Blending. You can also remove the blue data with Levels if you wish, but this actually changes your image and takes more steps.

Daaark

Use a different color on the fasteners, make them stand out.